


Introduction to Knitwear 101

by ratherbefree



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Swearing, badly-knitted jumpers, based on a tumblr prompt, they should've sworn more on the show tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:30:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5464937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherbefree/pseuds/ratherbefree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It appears to be either a blanket, tea-cosy, or maybe a scarf. It’s knitted, and wow, he may just have found the one thing that Annie’s bad at."</p>
<p>Jeff receives a gift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Introduction to Knitwear 101

**Author's Note:**

> had to ctrl-f to switch out any "jumpers" i wrote instead of "sweaters" but as i haven't yet checked this over idk if there are still some there. sorry if there is!

The day had been a total disaster.

And not just because of the whole singing-in-front-of-the-school, probably-definitely-on-LSD stuff.

Jeff had been planning to have a quiet night in, perhaps showing up (just as a courtesy, of course) to Casa De Troybednnie (the name still made him want to cringe) for a couple of hours, before drinking as much Scotch as he had left in his apartment and collapsing into bed.

But then Glee happened, and, well, that’s pretty much explanation enough.

He’s avoiding thinking about the thing that happened in the costume room, but. It’s safe to say that that accounts for roughly 89% of the awkwardness of the entire day.

So when Shirley and Britta tried to coerce him into joining them in a last-minute Christmas carolling session to make Abed “feel better”, he had been so, so tempted to just decline.

And yet here he was, pouring himself a glass of sparkling water in the kitchen area (because Troy and Abed don’t have any alcohol, of-fucking-course) and discreetly keeping an eye on the rest of the group, who presently were half-watching intently, half-cringing at the Inspector Whatever Christmas special.

He leans against the counter, and it emanates a loud creaking noise. God, they should really get this place fixed up.

The obnoxious title music starts to blare from the TV, and it looks like Troy might be crying, so he guesses that the godawful episode must be finished by now.

(Maybe he can finally execute the Irish exit he’s had planned since before they arrived??-)

But now Annie’s taken the chance to yell about gift-swapping or whatever, and _ugh_ , why didn’t he see this coming?

Thankfully, it seems that he isn’t the only person to not have the emotional capacity to actually care about giving gifts. Britta’s awkwardly shrugging her way through a false explanation that no one is actually listening to, and Pierce is rolling his eyes like an overtired 7-year-old, but Annie, Troy, and Abed have rushed off to their rooms.

Shirley has managed to materialise a huge gift bag out of thin air (seriously, was she even carrying that when they came in?)

He’s thought of a truly excellent speech to weasel himself out of the whole thing by the time the others return. Troy and Abed seem to have doubled up on the gift giving front, and Troy is insisting on carrying the sack of presents over his shoulder like Santa Claus.

In typical Annie fashion, she’s lugging a comedically large bag into the room and smiling as if this is a perfectly normal situation. Of course.

He decides that this must be the best time to come out and admit it, while everyone is distracted by Annie’s gift-swapping, so he clears his throat.

“We know, we know.” Annie interest before he can even finish his first word. “You didn’t get us anything.”

“That’s-“

“And don’t even bother using the excuse that you _didn’t know_ we were supposed to bring gifts!” Britta points an accusatory finger at him from her seat on the couch.

“ _You_ didn’t bring anything, either, Britta.” Annie reminds her.

Britta looks like she might argue, but ultimately decides against it.

Troy, Abed, and Annie appear to have a conversation made entirely out of eye movements and hand gestures, and it is finally settled that Troy and Abed will dispense their gifts first.

As almost everyone seems to have forgotten his slip-up, Jeff makes his way into the living room area and slumps into the couch, leaving a space between he and Britta, because he’s still a little annoyed at her.

Troy and Abed seem to have doubled-up this year, and the gifts they’re giving out are a strange combination of just-plain-weird and okay-I-see-why-this-could-be-considered-kind-of-heartfelt. Abed passes him a small bottle of whisky and the signature Greendale sweatshirt. He folds the latter up into a tight ball and places it near Britta, then studies the whisky.

It’s the cheap kind, and he’s willing to bet that they bought it from the local gas station, but hey, at least they tried. He sets it on the coffee table in from of him.

Annie seems to be handing out gifts from her sack, now. Hers are definitely more on the okay-I-see-why-this-could-be-considered-kind-of-heartfelt side of things, and they’re met with a chorus of awws and thank you-s. They’re all perfectly wrapped, all angles and precise folds, of course.

Instead of directly handing his to him, he gets a small lilac parcel passed to him from Britta. When he looks over, Annie’s already moved onto The Next Thing, which in this case seems to be disposing of all the discarded wrapping paper lying around on the floor.

He tears at the tissue paper carefully, wondering just how overly elaborate her present will be this year, when he’s met with a surprise.

Glaring up at him is a Greendale Community College teeshirt.

Well, then.

He plasters on a grateful smile, anyway - he may not show the same courtesy to Troy and Abed, but come on, it’s _Annie_ \- and folds it over the arm of the couch. No sooner has he allowed his facial muscles to relax than the girl in question is calling his name.

“Jeff, could you come help me with this? I need to take the trash out to the garbage chute.” She’s balancing the pile of wrapping paper in her arms, while tipping her head towards the garbage bag sitting by the door.

It doesn’t really seem like she actually _needs_ help - she might be tiny, but carrying a trash bag and a bundle of papers really doesn’t take that much effort - but she’s making The Face and that’s enough to override his previous intentions of not speaking to her until all the awkwardness surrounding the day’s events has blown over.

So he pushes himself up from the couch without his friends noticing and crosses the room in a matter of strides.

“Thanks.” Annie replies primly, marching towards the door. It clicks open after a brief second of manoeuvring and then she’s holding it open with one foot, so Jeff grabs the garbage bag with one hand (it’s seriously not that heavy, he thinks Annie’s just getting lazy) and follows her out into the hallway.

Annie leads him to a secluded part of the hallway - a dead end with one door that looks suspiciously like that one scene from _The Shining_ \- and spins on her heel to face him, grin suddenly stretching across her face again.

(No, not stretching. More like - _flowing_.)

“I didn’t want to give you your _actual_ gift in front of all the others.” She confides, rolling up onto the balls of her feet. “I hid it in the trash bag.”

His gaze drifts disbelievingly down to the bag, still clutched in his right hand, and when the message has finally sunk in, he sends her a skeptical look.

“Just open it.” She rolls her eyes.

He opens the bag gently, a little afraid of what he’ll find. (After the events of today, he doesn’t quite know what to expect from her anymore.) When all he can see is a dark shape, he tentatively reaches one arm in, gripping something soft and a little cold. He brings it out with his eyes half-squinted, and for a moment he’s not entirely sure what it is.

(But Annie’s eyes are searching and hopeful, so he takes a better look.)

It appears to be either a blanket, tea-cosy, or maybe a scarf. It’s knitted, and wow, he may just have found the one thing that Annie’s bad at.

“I knitted you a sweater.” She states, her confidence from before wavering slightly. “I just didn’t want the others to see, ‘cause I didn’t make them any…” She’s watching him curiously.

“I… Wow. Thank you.” He moves the _sweater_ around in his hands. There’s a mess of green stitched into what he assumes is the front.

Annie’s still watching him with an expression like, _why don’t you put it on?_ and though Not-Lame Jeff Winger™ would never do such a thing, he guesses that it can’t hurt to just indulge her a little bit. It helps that he took his own sweater off just before the gift-swapping, so he’s standing already freezing in his shirt.

He finds what he can only assume is the head-hole and yanks it down, discovering two gappy arm-holes on the way. It’s unfortunately baggy and over-sized, but Annie is smiling at him like he’s just bought her a puppy or something and it’s worth it.

“How do I look?” He hides his grimace in favour of a slightly strained grin.

Annie squints as though something isn’t quite right, shuffles towards him, and fiddles with something at his neckline. Her hands suddenly feel too warm against his skin.

When he looks down to shoot her a questioning look, he notices that her fingers are shaking. Shit.

“Sorry, there’s just….” She trails off, but her hands are still busy at his neck.

“Annie,” he murmurs. It comes out quieter than he’d expected it to.

She looks up then, meets his eyes, and there’s a question there. It’s not unlike the last time this happened, outside the Transfer Dance while he had one foot in his old life, one in his new. After she kissed him, after she pulled back, her Disney eyes were searching and almost apologetic. Like she was asking if that was okay. (Of course it was.)

And she’s giving him _those eyes_ again and her hands have stilled at his chest and _fuck_ , this is the last thing he planned on today.

And he’s completely ready to just pull away, laugh nervously, and get on with this like a gentleman, but then her breath hitches and her gaze drops down to his mouth and she flicks her tongue out to lick her lips, almost nervously, and -

Well. He’s a goner.

When he closes the short distance between them, she lets out a tiny little sigh, and he feels like someone has literally yanked his stomach up into his chest. It’s simultaneously the best and worst feeling.

It’s been way too long.

She manages to deepen the kiss herself, even though she’s having to stand on her tiptoes and rely on his hands at her waist to even reach, which doesn’t make much sense but he learned to stop questioning her years ago.

All thoughts of awkward musical numbers and _Winger-what-the-fuck-she’s-only-21_ left his head long ago, to be replaced with a mess of _AnnieAnnieAnnieAnnieAnnieAnnieAnnie_ punctuated with other things he could never, ever say to her.

‘Cause he has the privilege of being able to run his tongue along the roof of her mouth and physically feel the vibrations of her moan as he does so.

He has to push back after that, partly because he needs to catch his breath (and like, what is this, a rom-com?) and partly because he’s ~~pretty sure~~ definitely sure that if he hadn’t, things would definitely have escalated, and though he’s given up on (some) of his morals today already, there’s no way he’s gonna sleep with a 21-year-old. _(Not today, at least…)_ (Shut up, brain.)

And it does give him a sick sense of pride that she’s trying to catch her breath, too. Also, her hair is all messed up at the back and he would apologise if he was actually sorry about it.

He pretends that he’s totally unaffected by this. Or, at least, he tries to pretend. “So… Sorry for having to ask, but what exactly is this green part meant to be?”

At her confused expression, he gestures to the mess of green lines on his sweater.

“Oh! That! Um,it’s supposed to be, uh,” she shoots him a sheepish look, fiddling with he hem of her own Christmas sweater. “Mistletoe.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> literally just wanted to write a j/a christmas fic because Juliet is a little angsty and tis the season for cliched fic ideas so  
> also I've never seen the shining so sorry if thats an incorrect reference   
> anyways review if u want


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